


Memento Mori

by Phoenixfeather



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x10 coda, Angel True Forms, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Castiel Needs a Hug, Castiel in the Bunker, Coda, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Destiel - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s12e10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Pining Dean, Sam Winchester is a good friend, Season/Series 12, Supernatural Headcanons, Team Free Will, Wings, and he finally gets one, heavily implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 00:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10708746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixfeather/pseuds/Phoenixfeather
Summary: Dean is annoyed to find out that they forgot to wrap up the case of Benjamin's stabbing. Still, he finds himself intrigued as he is told that the dead angel had owned an apartment and he, Sam and Cas drive back to have a look around. Old wounds are opened and start to heal as Cas is finally able to say goodbye to one of his siblings properly.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“I … I didn’t know Benjamin spent that much time on earth, much less that he had a home here.”Something about the way Cas said the word home, with so much tender reverence in his voice, made Dean uncomfortable. Ishim’s voice rang in the back of his mind, still mocking him from beyond the veil of death. “No wings, no home, just a ratty old coat and two poorly trained monkeys.” He felt that he should answer somehow, but he didn’t know how, so he stuck to solving the situation at hand.“Listen. You really don’t need to come with. I know this has been hard on you. We’ll handle it and …”“No, I’ll come with you. Benjamin was my friend for millennia and now …,” Cas sighed deeply and his whole body seemed to deflate. “now I barely seem to have known him. I owe it to him to at least take care of his affairs after his death.”





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> So ... this is really freaking late.  
> I started writing this just after 12x10 and only finished it around two weeks ago. With editing and Beta-reading, it took another two weeks and here we are now.

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” - Susan Sontag

_________________

Dean had to fight the urge to take the gun from under his pillow and simply shoot his phone. For the second time in just five minutes, he could hear it ringing from across the room. It was nine in the morning and Dean had been sleeping in. They had just finished a hunt relatively successfully (they were all still alive after all) and he had earned it, god damnit! Nevertheless, someone seemed to think otherwise and since there was always the possibility it might be an actual emergency, Dean groaned and reluctantly pushed himself off the bed. He blindly felt for the switch on his bedside lamp and turned it on. It didn’t help. He still couldn’t see. The light blinded him and he reflexively squinted his eyes shut, so he decided to use his ears instead and followed the sound of the ringing. It actually wasn’t difficult for him to find his way around his room without sight. The space had become so familiar that he didn’t even bump into anything.

Once he found the phone, an old, cheap spare, he flicked it open and put as much energy as he could muster, thirty seconds after waking up, into a half yawned “Hello?”

“Agent Bonaparte?” a female voice asked and Dean rolled his eyes. He was never letting an irritated Sam chose their aliases again.

“Yes, who’s speaking?” Dean tried to put some authority in his voice and felt his spine straighten a little. It failed to have a similar effect on his own psyche, though, since he was sitting on the bunker floor in his pajama pants.

“This is Chief Hester Goldblatt, Odessa PD. I believe you told my officers to call you if anything strange comes up about the case.”

Dean fought to suppress a groan. They had forgotten to come up with an explanation for Benjamin’s stabbing and tell the police to terminate the case. With everything that had happened at the church, it had simply slipped their minds. He made a mental note to give Sam and Cas a stern talking to about not forgetting to tie up loose ends, even when a case got personal.

“We’ve found some artifacts in the victim’s apartment that I think would fall under the category of ‘strange’, even by FBI standards.” Dean could clearly detect a note of thinly veiled venom in the chief’s voice. He was used to it. Posing as FBI agents often meant they had to deal with disgruntled local police, who consciously or subconsciously, felt their  
territory threatened.

He was already scrambling for an explanation as to why the case was actually closed, when his mind came to screeching halt.

“Wait, did you say the victim’s apartment?” Dean asked before he could stop himself.

“Of course, we searched her apartment. What are you doing to investigate?” The chief asked incredulously.

“Uhm, my colleagues and I actually thought she didn’t own an apartment.”

“Why? Nothing about her appearance suggested that she was homeless? Wait! Is it because she had a gaming addiction?”

“A what addiction?” Dean was having trouble keeping up with the conversation and the fact that he hadn’t had any coffee yet was only half the reason.

“Yes. The owner of the bar where she was stabbed told us she was a regular who also had to be chased out after closing time on a regular basis. But I'm sure you already knew that, Agent. That is, if you're still the one investigating this case?”

Dean looked down at his bare chest and pajama clad legs and had half a mind to just say ‘No’ and hang up, but something about the fact that an angel had owned an apartment made him reconsider.

Angels didn’t need to sleep and as far as Dean knew most of them didn’t bother with many earthly possessions at all. Even Cas only owned the clothes he wore all the time, an extra suit, his angel blade and his car. So why on earth would an angel who wasn’t even at odds with Heaven own an apartment?

Then there was, of course, the fact that if Benjamin had been in possession of items that were deemed as “strange” by the police chief, some of those items might actually turn out to be dangerous.

“Um, okay. We’ll be there in about four hours. My colleagues and I have to finish … a thing here.”

“Sure,” Chief Goldberg’s answered in a flat voice. “Just finish your thing and I’ll get back to work.”

There was a huff of breath and then the line went silent.

Dean took a moment to chuck the phone back into his duffel and then pushed himself to his feet, groaning at the stab he felt in his lower back after having sat on the cold concrete floor.

Half an hour later he emerged from the bathroom, freshly shaven and clad in his FBI suit.

He made a quick detour to the kitchen where he grabbed a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and carried them to the war room.

As he had expected, Cas was already (or was it still?) seated at the map table, Sam’s laptop open in front of him.

“You been sittin’ here the whole night?” Dean inquired while sitting down in the chair next to Cas.

The angel failed to even look up at Dean and the only acknowledgment the hunter got was a mumbled “Mhm” as Cas scrolled down the main page of some obscure conspiracy theorist’s website.

His right hand went up and, in what Dean was sure was an unconscious movement, loosened his tie. The action caused an involuntary smile to sneak its way onto Dean’s face. Cas making little unconscious movements out of sheer habit was something that happened quite often these days. Every time Dean noticed, it made him think back to the creature he had met almost a decade ago. Back then Castiel had often seemed like he didn’t quite know what to do with his human limbs. Now the angel adjusted his clothing when it felt uncomfortable, he darted his hands through his hair and once or twice Dean had observed him tapping rhythmically with his foot as if to an unheard beat. It let a small flower of hope bloom in Dean’ chest. Maybe Cas was finally settling down a little. Maybe the angel finally felt comfortable enough in his body to make this human realm, and by extension their little family unit, his home.

Dean went back to looking at the laptop and read along as Cas skimmed over the articles. He actually had to chuckle at some of the headlines. ‘Is Obama stealing YOUR wife’s egg cells?’ and ‘My Child was stolen and replaced by an android!’ were only the tip of the ‘crazy’iceberg.

“Why’d you think you’d find anything on there?” Dean’s voice came out muffled around a mouthful of cereal and he actually spewed a few drops of milk on the laptop. Dean would have gone and fetched a cloth to wipe it away, but Cas just swiped his sleeve over the laptop surface a few times and the stains were gone.

“Sorry,” Dean mumbled, although there was only embarrassment and no actual regret behind that statement. The little display of his lack of manners earned him a short glare from Cas.

“Humans often tend to notice the unusual, even if they then draw the wrong conclusions. These websites are run by people who actively search for strange occurrences to back up their theories, correct?”

“Sure, but you gotta wade through all the bullshit first if you wanna find out anything useful.”

“I had all night.”

“So you find anything?”

“No.” Cas sounded frustrated and Dean couldn’t blame the guy. “I thought maybe Kelly might have gone to a hospital and they might have noticed something unusual about her pregnancy. Nephilim usually develop much faster in the womb than regular human children and Kelly might actually be giving birth in the next two months. It’s hard to estimate an exact time frame since a Nephilim conceived by an archangel is unprecedented.”

Dean painfully gulped down his mouthful of unchewed cornflakes.

“So that means we have even less time to find her before she gives birth to the little Hell spawn?” 

“Exactly.” With that Cas pushed the laptop away from himself, closing it a little too forcefully.

Dean swallowed his last mouthful and washed it down with coffee.

“Ok. Well...here’s somethin’ else. I just got a call from the Odessa police chief tellin’ me they found something on Benjamin’s case. ‘Cause, we kinda forgot to come up with a cover story, so, they’re still investigatin’.” 

“So did you resolve the situation or why are you telling me this?” Cas leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on his lap and looked at Dean with tired, long suffering patience. For the first time that morning, Dean got an actual look at his friend and he felt his insides clench in concern as he saw that the bruises on the angel’s face had still not healed completely. They now formed a halo of yellow and purple around the angel’s mouth and left eye and while they might have reached that stage far more quickly than they would on a human, the fact that Cas had not healed them completely was still a sign that the angel was gravely weakened.

"Turns out, Benjamin had an apartment. The police searched it...found some stuff they're calling 'strange artifacts'. Figured we'd go check it out. Make sure none of it's dangerous."

Castiel’s eyebrows had shot up to his hairline when Dean had mentioned that Benjamin owned an apartment. Than the angel looked down, visibly swallowed and Dean could see his cheeks hollow out as if he was biting down on them.

“You alright, Cas? If you don’t wanna come Sam and I can go alone, check whether there’s anything to take care of and be back for takeout and Netflix at six.”

“I … I didn’t know Benjamin spent that much time on earth, much less that he had a home here.”

Something about the way Cas said the word home, with so much tender reverence in his voice, made Dean uncomfortable. Ishim’s voice rang in the back of his mind, still mocking him from beyond the veil of death. “No wings, no home, just a ratty old coat and two poorly trained monkeys.” He felt that he should answer somehow, but he didn’t know how, so he stuck to solving the situation at hand.

“Listen. You really don’t need to come with. I know this has been hard on you. We’ll handle it and …”

“No, I’ll come with you. Benjamin was my friend for millennia and now …,” Cas sighed deeply and his whole body seemed to deflate. “now I barely seem to have known him. I owe it to him to at least take care of his affairs after his death.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over not staying in touch, man. It’s not like you didn’t have enough on your plate the last couple ‘a years. And I don’t remember Benjamin ever knocking on your door either. This stuff ’s a two-way street, just saying.”

Cas shook his head.

“I’ve done too much to my brethren to demand anything from them, Dean.”

Dean was about to protest, to tell him that he only ever did what he thought was the right thing and that at least he wasn’t a self-entitled dick like most of the angels but Sam, employing all his carefully retained skills of impeccable timing, chose that exact moment to barge in through the bunker door. He jogged down the stairs and was still bouncing until he came to a stop on the other side of the table. Due to their time in prison, Sam’s hair had almost reached his shoulders and he had pulled it into a ridiculously tiny ponytail to keep rogue strands from sticking to his sweaty face. He seemed annoyingly relaxed.

Sam’s gaze fell on Dean, wandered to Cas, who was still more draped in his chair than sitting in it, and then back to his brother.

“Did you find a case? Why are you in your FBI suit?”

“Actually, we forgot to wrap up the last one.”

“What?” Sam asked and stopped his annoying hopping.

“Yup, apparently Benjamin had some questionable stuff in his apartment. Gotta go and have a look.”

“Sure ...,” Sam was still panting a little, his chest heaving. “Sure, meet you guys in 30 minutes in the garage.”

 

____________

 

The drive back to Odessa was much more peaceful than their first journey there, even though Cas still didn’t say a word without prompting. At least he didn’t glare daggers into the back of Dean’s head either and he was more subdued than seething.

When they exited the Impala in front of an urban apartment complex, Dean couldn’t help but feel nervous and curious at the same time. They didn’t know what would greet them in there and even though Cas seemed to have held his late comrade in high regards, Cas’s assessment of his fellow angels wasn’t always entirely accurate. Yet, even if Benjamin didn’t own anything that would cause them trouble, one gaze at his friend told Dean that Cas would be affected by what they’d find. His mind wandered back to the moment they had found the scorched wing marks on the wall of a rundown bar (and the shock he had felt over discovering just how wrecked and featherless they were). The moment Cas had laid eyes on them, he had drifted away from Sam and Dean, stared at them for five minutes without saying a word or paying his two human friends and the bar owner they were questioning any mind and then proceeded to bluntly snap at the later to get out. Dean suspected Cas had simply been too overwhelmed and overcome with emotions to even attempt to use his ever growing “people skills”.

Dean kept a close eye on the angel, who had shrugged out of his trench coat in the car and was now only wearing his white shirt and dark blue suit. He seemed composed though when they passed the officer at the front door, who told them the apartment number and floor after they had flashed him their badges.

Chief Goldblatt was already waiting for them. She was smaller than Dean had expected and resembled Donna more that Jody in stature but she had a strict no-nonsense air about her that Dean hadn't seen since Ellen.

“We already secured some of the more suspicious items in there.” She said by way of greeting. “Be careful with that stuff, some of it is pretty old. I’d wager, over a century.”

Cas had hung back so far, always a step behind Sam and Dean and letting them speak, but he shuffled closer now, giving Goldblatt a polite nod.

“Thank you, Chief. We can take it from here.”

She shot him an assessing look and seemed to deem his veiled dismissal as respectful enough to not warrant a comment. She told them to keep them updated if they found anything linked to the stabbing and disappeared down the staircase.

Dean and Sam looked at each other over Cas’s head and came to the silent agreement to let him make the next move. The angel wouldn’t have come off as distressed to anyone else, but Dean knew better. His best friend’s face was a perfect mask of passivity. It made alarm bells go of in Dean’s head, since nowadays, Cas wasn’t that difficult to read. It was when he made a conscious effort to slip back into his immovable angel statue persona that Dean had reason to worry.

A few seconds passed with none of them moving and then Cas reached out a hand and opened the door.

Dean didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been this. The front door lead them directly into the sitting room and when Cas moved inside to let them have a look, Dean had to blink a few times to let his eyes adjust to the assault of visual input. Sure enough, the room was clean and in good condition, but the furniture was so mismatched that even Dean, who wasn’t exactly fit to be an interior designer, felt his eyes sting at the wild mixture of colors and patterns that ranged from a couch with lilac wildflowers on it, over heavy, deep red velvet curtains to what looked like handknit rugs in all possible colors that covered almost the entire floor. Framed pictures, ornaments and all kinds of little trinkets were splattered over all the furniture and walls.

“Holy shit”, Dean muttered under his breath. “Cas, do angels have a hoarding instinct and you’ve just been holdin’ back?”

That earned him a very deliberate step on the foot by Sam.

“What? I’m just sayn’. Thought you guys didn't care about earthly possessions.”

“We don’t”, Cas said in a flat voice. Without looking at either brother, he strode over to a wall that was home to a huge collection of pictures that ranged from faded black and white portraits to slightly less faded color snapshots. The frames were equally as varied. Some were ornate and golden and probably quite heavy, while others were made of simple black plastic.

Castiel spent a long moment looking at each and every one of them, before taking a deep breath and turning around to look at Sam and Dean.

“I believe these are mostly Martha’s possessions. His vessel’s”, he added, when he was met with only blank looks from Sam and Dean.

Dean felt a short sting in his chest.

“Is that even possible?”

“It is. You saw what Gadreel did when he was possessing Sam.” Dean pointedly did not look at his brother at that. The guilt over what he put Sam through back then would probably never ease completely. “An angel can let the human they are possessing take back control while still sharing a body with them. But it is very risky. As you know, consent for possession can be withdrawn. Control of the vessel would only be relinquished if the angel were certain that wouldn't happen.”

“So only if the vessel is not aware they are being possessed”, Sam concluded, seemingly unfazed by the reminder of his own experience with the matter, “or because the angel trusts the vessel not to expel them, given the chance.”

Cas nodded, turning back to the photos.

Dean and Sam shared a look. They both knew that Cas felt a lot of guilt towards what had happened to Jimmy Novak and his family, but Dean wasn’t sure how to approach the subject and from the looks of it, Sam didn’t either.

“This is her daughter Rose”, Cas said without prompting. His eyes were still roaming over the pictures and Dean and Sam both stepped over to inspect them as well. They showed a variety of women of various ages and apparently over the course of many years, but all of them had dark skin. Dean took the time to look at several of them more closely. At the very center of the cluster of pictures was a portrait in an oval frame. It showed a young girl, probably no older than three in a simple linen dress with wild curly hair, sitting in her mother’s lap in front of a plain white background. There were actually a few pictures like this one, in each of them, mother and daughter could be seen together and Dean let his gaze drift over them, watching the girl age several years in the span of seconds. He soon discovered that there was actually an order to the placement of the photographs. The oldest one was right at the center and from there, newer pictures moved outwards in a spiral and Dean followed them watching the girl’s, Rose’s, life unfold before his eyes.

Once she reached her teenage years, Martha didn't appear in the pictures anymore and they became much less formal. The girl was shown in front of a variety of backgrounds; in front of vast fields, at a shore, sitting on a beach under palm trees. There were even some famous sights among them. Dean spotted the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building, the great wall of China and the Eiffel tower. By the time that picture was taken, Rose had become a woman of at least thirty years, but her smile was wider than ever, her eyes sparkling, even in washed out black and white. Dean moved on to the next photos and watched her grow old in leaps and bounds. She was forty in front of what Dean presumed was a mosque, fifty in front of the Taj Mahal, sixty in front of the Seattle space needle, seventy in front of the World Trade Center.

And then the path of photos Dean was following abruptly came to an end. There simply wasn’t another picture after the one of the old dark skinned lady in front of the newly finished towers and Dean’s stomach twisted into knots.

“Cas”, he asked, his voice sounding strangled. “When you say this is her daughter, do you mean …?”

“It’s Rose in every single one of these pictures, yes.”

Dean’s breath left him with a shuddering sigh as he once again peered at the last picture. Like all the newer ones, it was in color. The old woman in the center wore a simple light orange pantsuit, that Dean supposed must have been modern at the time and even though she was leaning on a walking stick and her hair was white, her smile had not been dimmed by time and age, on the contrary, she was looking at whoever had been taking the picture with absolute joy in her eyes.

“I knew Benjamin used to come back to earth frequently, but I never thought to ask why. I knew Martha had a daughter. Benjamin used to speak of both of them, of the love they had for each other. And all this time, he ensured that they could be together.”

“Hey Cas”, Sam chimed in, moving a little closer. “You know that his situation was vastly different from yours. You were in the middle of an apocalypse and before you could even properly side with humanity you got killed. You can’t be blamed for what happened to Jimmy.”

But Cas wasn’t looking at him or Dean, instead his eyes wandered over the last pictures again, the ones where Rose was well into her sixties already.

“They must have flown her to all of these places, Benjamin and Martha.” There was something incredibly wistful in his tone of voice and his shoulders drooped down, causing his whole frame to deflate.

“It never occurred to me back when I had my wings, to just fly you places.” He turned to the brothers at that.

“It’s not like we ever had a lot of spare time to go on vacation”, Sam said a little wryly. “Seriously, Cas, we never expected any such thing from you.”

Cas heaved a deep sigh and nodded. “I know. I simply wish I had thought of that myself. I feel I wasted so much time, both with you and Benjamin.”

“We could still do that”, Dean blurted, without actually thinking much about what he was saying. Both Cas’ and Sam’s eyes snapped to him. “You know, fly places. Okay, not actually fly because, you know, you don’t have your wings and I hate planes, but there’s lots of places in the Americas we could go to.”

Dean knew he was babbling and had to concentrate hard not to blush.

Cas brow furrowed a little deeper, the permanent lines on his faces becoming more prominent.

“You would really want to do that?” He asked uncertainty.

“Yeah, sure”, Dean said with a lot more confidence. “Never been to Tijuana.”

Sam rolled his eyes pointedly at him and Dean recognized bitch face #32, translation: “Did I just seriously hear you say that or do I need to clean my ears?”

“Or, you know, we could go to the Grand Canyon”, Dean added hastily, still not completely disregarding the Tijuana idea. That could actually turn out to be hilarious with Cas. “Haven’t been there in a while.”

“Me neither”, Cas said and Dean felt a little bit of pride rising in his chest at the small smile on the angel’s lips. “It’s been a little more than three thousand years since I’ve seen it from closer than the earth’s outer atmosphere.”

Dean had to stifle a giggle. Their versions of 'a while' were very different.

“Okay, so that’s set”, Sam piped in, now grinning in obvious amusement.

Cas smiled at the younger Winchester, then he turned around to once again study the pictures.

Dean hovered for a moment before deciding he’d rather not feel another burst of melancholy at Rose’s life, so he moved on to inspect more of the room. There were only a few other pictures on the walls. All of them looked at least a hundred years old and showed a dark-skinned man in simple but well cared for clothes.

“Hey Cas”, Dean called over his shoulder. “do you know if Martha was married? Is this her husband?”

“Yes, this is Rose’s father and Martha’s husband. And she was widowed, to be precise. Her husband died of some illness before Benjamin took Martha as a vessel. I don’t know any more about him.” Cas said apologetically. He had walked over and was now pointing at a picture that Dean hadn’t had a closer look at yet.

“This is them together.”

It was the first time Dean had actually seen the woman who would later become an angel’s vessel for over a century. Her face was round, with high, prominent cheekbones and sharp eyes. He guessed it made sense for someone who didn’t age for over a century to not take any pictures after they got practically immortal, but she had obviously cared a lot for her husband and wanted to preserve the memory of their time together.

Sam, meanwhile, had wandered over to a huge bookcase next to the door they had come in through that held at least a lifetime worth of books to read. He was browsing through the books at his eye level when pulled up short.

“Guys”, he exclaimed. “You won’t believe this! I never knew Lily actually wrote a book!”

He held out a large leather bound tome.

“'A Brief Summary of the Social and Political Structures of Heaven', by Lily Sunder”, Sam reads out the title excitedly. “uh...YEAH! That needs to go back to the bunker and be thoroughly read.”

“If you wanted a summary of the social and political structures of Heaven, you could just ask”, Cas said in a sour tone of voice that he usually reserved for Dean at his most irritating.

Sam had the decency to blush.

“Sam’s right though”, Dean cut in. “We should take this to the bunker. And let’s look through these and see if there's any more that don't belong in civilian hands.”

They began to work through the books methodically. Sam, being the Sasquatch that he was, looked through the highest drawers, while Cas took on the left side of the bookcase and Dean the right. All three of them found book after book to confiscate and placed them on the ever-growing stack they had started on a nearby chair. Most supernatural-themed books they found were on the topic of angels, but some were about ghosts and they even found an encyclopedia of every known supernatural creature of its time (which turned out to be 1875, so Dean felt confident that his and Sam’s knowledge was probably broader.)

“Why’d they even collect these, though? Shouldn’t Benjamin have known all of this stuff already?”, he asked after he had found a book called “Banishing Sigils and how to use them”.

“Maybe he found the human take on these subjects interesting”, Cas mused.

“Or Martha just wanted reliable knowledge that didn’t come from the guy living in her head, however much she trusted him”, Sam added.

“Yeah, might be that”, Dean said absentmindedly. He had just flipped open “Banishing Sigils and how to use them” at random, only to have it open in the middle to reveal a photo tucked between two browning pages. Its edges were a little frayed, but Dean could still clearly make out what was depicted. It was a group photo of four people. Three of them Dean recognized instantly as Ishim, Mirabel and Martha, though he suspected that Benjamin must have been possessing her already. 

Only one face was unfamiliar. Dean closed the book and set it on the stack behind him, all the while never taking her eyes off the woman. Or angel, most likely, judging by her company. Even though Dean was sure that he had never seen her face before, he felt the tug of recognition in his mind, like meeting someone face to face, when you'd previously only crossed paths with them on a busy street. Her face was slim, almost delicate, but her brow was furrowed and there was the glint of steel in her eyes. She was dressed, like the other angels in female vessels, in a long dress and a coat. The photo was in sepia colors, but in comparison hers was of a much lighter color than the other’s, probably white or beige.

And then it dawned on Dean and he had to stifle a laugh.

“Cas”, he asked, and while he was not taking his eyes off the picture, he could see both Cas and Sam turn away from their task in his peripheral vision. “I gotta ask. Did your taste in clothing not change at all in the last century?”

“Excuse me?” Cas sounded genuinely confused and as Dean looked up he was met with the exact same scowl he had just seen on the picture.

“Look who I found”, Dean gave Cas the picture. The angel’s frown vanished when he saw what it was.

“That was taken on the day we came to earth. You see, we used to document the few times we took vessels. That new invention, photography, seemed to us a faster method than posing for a portrait.”

Dean snorted. “You think?”

“I never knew Benjamin kept a copy”, Cas said in a wistful voice. Sam had moved behind Cas and was now peering over his shoulder at the photograph.

“Yeah, well, I’m glad he did”, Sam said, placing a hand on Cas’ arm. “Nice, to see you in another vessel. Kind of feels like meeting an old friend.”

Cas tore his eyes away from the picture and looked Dean square in the eye, an intensity in his gaze that had often been missing lately.

“You recognized me”, he said, the statement almost sounding like a question.

“Course I did”, Dean cleared his throat loudly, his hand rising up unconsciously to rub the back of his neck. “Would’a been embarrassed if I didn’t.”

“But I don’t know what makes you say I never changed my taste in clothing. I’m not wearing a dress anymore.”

That made both Sam and Dean laugh and Dean, too, moved in to clasp Cas’ shoulder.

“Okay, okay, you changed it a little”, he was relieved to find that the angel smiled back at him and suddenly wished that he could elicit that expression a little more often.

“Sorry guys, but we should still have a look at those suspicious items the police mentioned. It wouldn’t be good for anything magical to get into their hands.” With that Sam effectively ended the conversation. His head was craned around and he was looking at a low living room table that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an antique shop either. The police had apparently already placed anything they deemed unusual on it. Dean could only hope that none of them were cursed or they might have a whole new case on their hands.

He felt a little reassured when Cas simply put the picture in his pocket and then strolled over and picked up the item closest to him.

It turned out to be a monocle. And while it was in a good condition not even dusty, Dean knew that it must have been from a time when glasses were still not widely used.

“Was that Martha’s?”, he asked.

“No”, one corner of Cas’ mouth quirked up while he handed Dean the little trinket. “It actually belonged to my vessel, Joanna. Before I possessed her, she used this for reading. But I fixed her vision, so she didn’t have any need of it after I left her.”

Dean felt relieved that Cas’ vessel seemed to have come out of possession alive and that he wouldn’t have to comfort the angel because of her, too. He felt having Jimmy’s death weighing on his conscious was more than enough for his friend to have to bear.

He didn’t say any of that though. He simply gave the monocle back to Cas, who put it in his pocket.

The next thing Cas picked up was heavy gold necklace, engraved with runes on the side that would be lying against the skin, should one wear it. Cas took a critical look at them and then announced that they were Enochian symbols similar to the ones engraved into Dean’s and Sam’s ribs.

As they went through the pile of things, they found a giant tome about shifters that changed its cover when you held it against the light, a scarf that seemed to switch color as they passed it around (to Dean’s intense embarrassment it changed to pattern of pink lavender and blue stripes when he held it in his hands and he quickly passed it on to Cas), a brass telescope that loudly announced the name of whatever or whomever it was pointed at (which resulted in Dean and Sam having to clasp their hands over their ears as Dean looked through it at Cas and it gave of a deafening screeching noise) and a heavy old fashioned rosary with little pentagrams as beads.

There really wasn’t anything dangerous, so they placed all of it next to the door.

“I’m gonna have a look at the kitchen”, Sam announced at last, when everything was stored up properly and went over to the open kitchen door.

That left Dean and Cas to go through the one other door that let them directly to the bedroom and its adjoining bathroom. Both of them were pretty bare and looked like they were rarely used, which Dean supposed must have been the case, since angels didn’t need to sleep or use the bathroom. Still, he went to the closet to have a look inside.

Like the furnishing in the living room, Martha’s and Benjamin’s clothes were a wild mixture of every style that had gone in and out of fashion from the early 20th century until the present. But there wasn’t anything that would hint at more than a very elaborate interest in period clothing, so Dean simply closed the closet door and turned to Cas, who was standing by the bedside table.

The angel had turned on the lamp and was inspecting something small in his hands.

“Whaddya find?”, Dean asked curiously, moving to his friend’s side.

Castiel looked up at him sharply and curled his hands protectively over whatever he was holding. His face was illuminated only by the small lamp and in the dim light his features stood out like a sharp relief. His defined jawline, his high cheekbones, his full lips and prominent nose were suddenly singular entities acting autonomously. And his eyes, usually the color of the evening sky became onyx oceans, threatening to swallow Dean whole. The air of otherworldliness surrounding him hadn’t be this palatable since he had swallowed 50.000 souls and declared himself God.

But then Cas sighed, his whole chest heaving and deflating and the spell was broken.

“Apparently, Benjamin kept a collection of his feathers in this apartment.”

The angel’s hands uncurled and revealed a single, sleek brown feather.

Dean was a little taken aback by the colour. He would have expected black, or maybe a pure white, not a feather that could easily be mistaken for one belonging to a bird.

“I always wondered”, Dean began, glad to finally have the opportunity to ask, “How come you guys have feathers at all, and you know, actual wings, if you are … Uhm … multidimensional waves … or something?”

“Multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent?” Cas corrected with a faint smile. “I'm surprised you remember that exchange.”

I always remember, Dean wanted to say, but Cas kept on talking, so he kept his mouth shut. 

“We do have actual physical wings and feathers and … we don't have them.”

“Uhm Cas, that doesn't really explain it to me.”

The angel gave a frustrated huff and fiddled with the feathers for a moment, obviously searching for words.

“When thinking of angels, don't try to imagine us as one single form that I could describe to you. It's more like …” 

Cas let his gaze travel around the room aimlessly for a moment, then he seemed to get an idea, locking eyes with dean again.

“Try to think of it like a book, Dean. On each page, there is a picture. Some are similar to each other, some are vastly different, but all of them belong in the same book. You can open the book at any given page.”

“So the pages”, Dean said hesitantly, slowly catching on, “would be the different … dimension?”

“Exactly!” Cas said almost excitedly “Now, in each dimension, on each page, the angel takes another form. In the book analogy, the pages are just transparent enough that sometimes, when the light hits it correctly, you can see one picture through another.” 

“That's why I can sometimes see your wings? Because the light hit them just right?” 

It was meant as a joke and apparently Cas took it as such, since he breathed out a huff of laughter. 

“The dimension in which I have wings that look fairly similar to bird wings is so close to this one, that I can very easily align the two in such a way that the wings become visible. Sometimes they just do that by themselves, when a lot of heavenly power is released at once. And sometimes”, Cas looked at the feather again, “some feathers fall through.”

Suddenly, Dean was hit by an idea.

“Could you pull your whole wings over into this dimension?”

The angel’s face, previously alight with the joys of sharing something of himself with Dean, fell.

“Before Metatron’s spell, I think I could have pulled them over, but now they have barely any strength left. I’m afraid I would only injure them further.”

For a moment, unbidden images rose in the back of Dean’s mind, of a horribly bloody Castiel, mangled stubs on his back, screaming in pain and he had to physically shake himself to get rid of them. 

He could have kicked himself. He had seen the ashen imprint of Benjamin’s wings and had immediately suspected that Cas' probably didn't look any better. He shouldn't have brought it up, but now that he had, he couldn't help himself, he had to ask, because if there was even the slightest chance that he might be able to help …

“Cas?” He took great care to keep his voice level. “Do they hurt?”

The angel looked at him steadily for a long moment, seemingly assessing Dean and contemplating how much to reveal. Apparently he came to the conclusion that honesty was his best option, for a moment later he gave a curt nod.

Dean felt icy hands clutching at his heart at the thought of Cas constantly in pain ever since he got his grace back. And Dean, for all the time he spent worrying about the angel, hadn't even noticed or thought to ask.

His devastation must have shown on his face because a moment later, Cas put a hand on his shoulder, comforting him.

“It's okay, Dean. It's not the same kind of pain humans experience when they are injured.”

“And that makes it better?” 

“In a way yes, in a way no.” Cas let go of Dean's shoulder and sat down on to the bad, the feather still tenderly held between his palms. 

Dean hesitated as Cas contemplated his answer. He didn't want to crowd his friend, but lately, the angel had become much more willing, sometimes even eager, to reciprocate physical affection. He eventually settled for a compromise - sitting down next to Cas, in what he hoped would be interpreted as a gesture of camaraderie, but keeping a few inches between them.

“Have you noticed that I tend not to perceive as much as I used to?”

“Uhm …” Dean wrecked his brain for instances where it had been obvious to him that Cas didn't notice things he would have before, but honestly came up with nothing. Then again, what exactly Cas could see and feel as an angel had never been properly explained to him.

“It's a bit like white noise that is constantly blaring as I try to listen … or flickering lights as I try to see … a nauseating smell as I try to taste, except it affects all of my senses. Because my senses ARE me ...”

He trailed off and his eyes started skittering across the room, obviously desperately searching for the words to express himself properly. Dean was astonished at how willing Cas was to share details about himself, now that Dean had gotten him to talk. 

“Maybe think of it as sound. In an orchestra, every instrument is vital for the piece that is being played. If only a few of them are damaged and off key, the intonation will be irreversibly broken and the music will sound jarring rather than harmonious.”

Dean didn’t reply for a long moment. He was surprised to find himself not confused by the analogy at all, even though just minutes ago, Cas had compared himself to a book.

“And you don’t think we could do anything about that?”

“No, Dean, though I must confess, I find it immensely comforting that you would try”, Cas said, his features relaxing as they only ever did when he was on the verge of smiling.

It made Dean’s chest ache, more than Cas’ admission had that his wings hurt him. It was so easy to make that smile appear on the angel’s lips; a small admission of care was all it took. He placed a tentative hand on his friend’s shoulder and felt encouraged when Cas didn’t make the slightest move to escape.

“We’ll find something, okay? And if it just takes the edge off a little until we find a proper fix, we’ll find it.”

An unbelievably tender expression crossed Castiel’s face at that and suddenly strong arms were wrapped around Dean’s torso. It surprised the hunter a little, his hands hovering in midair for a second, before he wrapped them gently around his friend. Seemingly encouraged by Dean’s reciprocation, Cas burrowed closer, as he had been prone to do ever since he had started initiating hugs at all, as if making up for that one time in Purgatory tenfold.

Normally, Dean would have held on only shortly, then ended the hug with a few firm brotherly claps on the shoulder, but since they were alone in the bedroom, he didn’t feel the need to. He was as content as he would ever be, sitting on a bed with Cas and holding the angel as close as humanly possible.

“This ‘takes the edge off’, you know?” Cas murmured into Dean’s shoulder. The colloquialism sounded strange coming from him, air quotes audible even now.

“Really, hugging helps?” Dean found himself unconsciously squeezing Cas a little tighter.

He felt Cas nod against his skin and the angel’s breath as he spoke.

“It’s peaceful. I can concentrate on only you. Your skin, your soul, your smell, your heartbeat.”

Dean knew he would be creeped out beyond imagination if it was anyone but Cas telling him this. But after all, Cas would always be a little different and it was long overdue for Dean to listen to what the angel wanted to tell him, instead of what Dean was prone to hear. And if he, too, felt comforted by Cas’ warm embrace, well, the angel didn't need to know that. They had enough going on between them without Dean's feelings getting in the way.

They stayed like that, holding on to each other until there they heard Sam calling from the living room.

“Guys, there’s nothing in the kitchen, not even food. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, come to think of it. You found anything interesting?”

“Yeah, we’ll be out in a sec”, Dean called back, while reluctantly detangling himself from Cas. 

“Are there anymore of Benjamin’ feathers here?”

Cas nodded and turned around on the bed to open the night stand. Dean stood up to have a look inside and found at least five dozen feathers, neatly stacked in the little drawer.

“What do you want to do with them?” he asked looking at Cas again, who was still sitting on the bed.

“We should take them with us. They could come in handy. Used in the right spell, Angel feathers have healing powers. On humans”, the angel added when Dean shot him a hopeful look.  
They gathered them up, careful not to bend or break any of them, and went back into the living room, where Sam had already gathered most of the other items. Dean gave Cas the feathers he was holding and lifted the stack of books into his arms. They both moved towards the exit.

“Got everything?” He asked Sam, who nodded, his eyes trained on Cas and the feathers he was holding. “Then let’s get going. It’s only 6.30, we could get some pizza.”

“Hey Cas, you alright?” Sam talked over him.

The angel had been looking around the room, as if to take in every detail one last time.

“I think so. It just feels strange, leaving here. I never had the opportunity before, to revisit a sibling’s life after their death.”

“Does it make it easier?” Sam asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know, but it feels appropriate.” Cas wrenched his eyes away from the room and looked towards Sam and Dean. Sam smiled at him as Cas joined them at the door.

“I think it’s why we humans have funeral rites. Maybe it doesn’t feel easy, at first, to bury a loved one – or burn them, but in the long run, it’s necessary to let go.”

Dean thought back to all the times he had refused to believe that Sam was dead. There had been that awful first time, almost a decade ago now, when Sam had lain on a mattress in Bobby’s house for several days with a stab wound in his back, because Dean had refused to let him go.

Castiel nodded, while simultaneously holding the feathers closer to his chest. Sam must have noticed, too, because he moved a little closer. His hands were full with little trinkets, so he couldn’t move them up to touch Cas, but he managed to affectionately nudge the angel’s shoulder with his own.

“But it’s okay to keep something to hold onto the memories.”

Dean felt a wave of affection rise inside of him, as he watched Castiel smile up at Sam gratefully. There they were, his brother and his angel, the three of them more in tune with each other than they had ever been before. And maybe things weren’t perfect, maybe Cas was still grieving his angelic family and Mary was still trying to find her place in the world and Dean hadn’t found the courage yet to tell the angel his feelings, but for the first time he felt certain that they could resolve all of it.

Cas turned his gaze to Dean, nodded as if to agree with him and then gestured for them to move out before him. When they were all in the corridor, the angel turned around and pulled the door closed.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that was the scarf of sexual preferences and yes, it changed into the bisexual pride flag. :D (Where my Potter nerds at?)
> 
> Honestly, this took forever to write and edit. I would be so grateful if you left a short comment! :)  
> (Kudos are also always appreciated.)
> 
> And a very special thanks to my Beta GertieCraign, who didn't complain once as this fic got longer and longer.


End file.
